Catacombs Reference LibraryTV Times
Catacombs Reference Library
19-25 August 1978. p6-7. Search and Rescue was a 1977-1978 series filmed primarily in Canada, about animals that perform rescues. The UK ITV company HTV was a co-producer, Terence Feely wrote one two-part episode, and certain episodes were filmed in the UK.
Imagine calling for help- and having an animal come to the rescue. It's still an idea that has to be put into real-life practice, although marine experts have trained dolphins to go to the aid of swimmers in trouble. But if you doubt that animals could be of assistance in an emergency, watch how they perform in Search and Rescue- fiction may bes but an intriguing idea.
Lions, tigers, elephants, chimps, a sealion and a panther- all have their roles to play in the series.
But where do you collect such an assembly of stars ? And how do you persuade them to act ?
The answer was Longleat Safari Park, Wiltshire, and the expertise of top trainer Mary Chipperfield and her husband Roger Cawley, who runs Longleat. Together, they formed Search and Rescue's Alpha team, whose mission is to aid people in distress.
"Organising the animals was a fairly run-of-the-mill job," says Crawley, "although we don't get as much film work as we did a few years ago. But we are in a position to supply almost any animal. And food for them on set was no real problem since filming was in the West Country and the animals could be fed when they returned here in the evening.
"On location, we had trained people to cope with them and once erected a 12ft. high fence to ensure public safety. We don't expect trouble with our well-trained animals, but you can't take chances-after all, most are potential killers."
Mary, the specialist consultant on the programme, doesn't take chances, either. The secret of her success, says her husband, is that she knows the animals she works with. She owns most of them and has hand-reared many from birth.
Bengal and Delhi, stars of the episode Kitten in the Town, are now being featured in Mary's tiger act at the Blackpool Tower Circus. They are brothers born at Longleat two years ago.
For the series, Mary was asked to assemble a small zoo of trained animals, but the big cats were to be the star attractions. In addition to Bengal and Delhi, she chose Phoenix, a nine-year-old black panther, and a lioness called Elsie,
Phoenix was no newcomer to the screens his appearances including Space 1999 on ITV and the film The Vampire Circus.
Elsie was in Mary's circus act, but this is her first appearance, as it is for the tigers, the lion cub Kristy, and the tiger cub Bombay.
To complement the big cats, Mary chose Fred the chimp, transferring him from his part in Longleat's monkey tea-parties to a Search Rescue role.
You can also meet Caroline the camel, the elephants Womba and Rosie, and Marcus, a starry-eyed sealion who has already made his name in the TV commercial for the lager which refreshes parts other beers cannot reach.
Phoenix the blank panther appeared in The Exiles.
17-23 February 1979, "Inside Television" by Peter Genower p31
REJECTED BY her parents while still a baby, the star of Saturday's episode of Dick Turpin rose to fame after a long struggle against a crippling illness,
It sounds like a typical showbusiness story of triumph against the odds. Except that the star in question is a 12- year-old buzzard named Beauty, seen here with Christopher Benjamin, who plays Sir John Glutton in the series.
Beauty belongs to Jean Rubenis, who runs a sanctuary for sick beasts in Oxfordshire. "She was brought to me 11 years ago, a tiny bird with a broken leg and crushed wing," says Jean. "She was obviously an orphan, and though I managed to nurse her back to health, she was never able to fly again."
Jean devotes all her time to rehabilitating rejected or handicapped animals. Her one- acre garden is a Serengeti in miniature: home to snakes, wolfhounds, deaf cats, racing pigeons, donkeys and, of course, Beauty the buzzard. And to pay for their upkeep- Beauty devours a daily diet of dead chicks from a nearby hatchery-Jean hires them out for film and TV work.
Beauty herself, whose screen credits include a part in Space 1999, is a shy bird, who, despite her menacing looks, prefers to escape the glare of stardom to hop happily around the garden.
"Mind you," says Jean, "if a stranger picks her up, she has talons which grip like a vice. It can be quite painful."
Beauty the buzzard appeared in the year 2 title sequence.
Space: 1999 copyright ITV